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We're excited about the forthcoming publication of the Teaching Artist Handbook. Once the book is available this will be a place for readers to respond, share ideas, and discuss the work. In the meantime please feel free to leave questions and comments about the book and series here. We'll be notified when you leave a comment and we will respond.

Thanks!

Nick, Becca and Barbara

Comments

January 03, 2014 @07:16 pm

Caleb:
Great to hear from you and glad you like the book. Please visit and use our Facebook page to help spread the word about your project (https://www.facebook.com/TeachingArtistHandbook). And keep us posted on your specific ideas about teaching artists and qualitative research! All best, Becca

- Becca

January 01, 2014 @10:30 am

Hi All,
My name is Caleb Winebrenner. I just wanted to let you all know that at the end of the month I'll be posting a full review of the Handbook on my website for teaching artists. It's an incredible book, and one I want to spread the word about as much as I can. Related to all of that, I have two thoughts:
1. In January, and maybe early February, I'm inviting other teaching artists and community artists to contribute posts on the site giving insights and opinions on how they understand their work and its importance for community engagement and education. If anyone you know -- or the authors of the handbook -- would like to contribute, I'd love to hear from you.
2. You mention in the book possible ideas for future volumes. One area that is a huge interest for me is the intersection between being a teaching artist and conducting qualitative research (i.e. a teaching artist as an examiner of culture). I'll be doing extensive writing on this in the Spring, and I'd love to dialogue with you all on this as well.
Happy New Year!
Caleb
Discovering Teaching Artistry // PLAYBUILDER

- Caleb Winebrenner

July 20, 2013 @08:35 pm

Judy:
Glad to hear that the book has given you some verbal ammunition, as it were. One of the reasons we wrote this book was to give artists ways to talk about what they do and why they work in the ways they do (or want to!) to people who may not immediately get it. I sure hope this book and the questions and discussions around it change the terms of the discourse around the value of teaching artist work--which right now is kinda narrow. Anyway--keep us posted on your efforts! Onward.

- Becca

July 20, 2013 @06:45 pm

Thanks for writing this book! I've been a teaching artist for 15 years--all flying by the seat of my pants. Intuitively I knew that kids would function best if art was taught by an open studio where they could bring and work on their ideas and I would be technical advice and supply procurer. It's worked splendidly for the kids...not so much admin or funders, however, you given me the theory and vocabulary to perhaps persuade them. I mean, I'm convincing enough to have been fully funded, all these years, but there's all these requests to be neater, less loud and not so edgy (especially WRT censorship).

- judy j-w

December 10, 2012 @12:50 pm

Thanks for the feedback, Judith! I am happy that you see the strengths in the work we have excerpted here, and that some of what we have here also provokes you to respond and argue with the book too. That pleases me. We argue in the book that there is a range of ways to work with students. Specific prompts can help some students in some contexts to write better--that is what i have found. And step by step does not have to narrow imaginative possibilities--although when used in a rote fashion, it sure can. I think it all depends on how an individual artist works and the kind of relationship he or she establishes with students. If my step by step approach leads students to a place they have not been before and they are able to create work that is interesting and surprising to them, then i feel that i have done my job.
Thanks for your support and feedback, as always--
Becca

- Becca

December 09, 2012 @01:47 pm

Can't wait for the book, and glad meanwhile for these excerpts. Love so much that you say and love the clear (often opinionated) tone. Even when I disagree.
As I do, for example, in much of the prompt section. I think that your "weak prompts" are weakly presented but I think artists are perhaps the last ones standing able to offer opportunities for imagination, memory, and perception to meet the world whole. Think we do young artists (and the art-making experience) a disservice when we always lead through tiny, "scaffolded," step-by-steps.)